Pharmacists have taken to social media to warn that locum rates for the upcoming festive season could be far from jolly.

One reddit user last week (September 27) published a screenshot of locum rates on offer to pharmacists between December 22 and 28, asking whether anyone would want “to take these Christmas rates?”

Read more: Locum rates on high: Booking platform predicts soaring Christmas rates

The post showed Boots offering shifts for as little as £22 per hour in Leamington Spa and £23 per hour in Tamworth.

It revealed similar rates from Superdrug, with the multiple offering £23 per hour for shifts in Birmingham, Bilston, Coventry, Stafford and Worcester over the period.

C+D approached Boots for comment, and Superdrug declined to comment.

 

“Criminal during Christmas”

 

Other forum users expressed their dismay at the rates, which are almost seven times lower than the highest Christmas shifts reported by booking platform provider Locate a Locum last year.

"Less than £30 is criminal during Christmas,” one said.

"When multiples start pushing down wages, it doesn't take long for the independents to follow it and the race to the bottom continues," another added.

Read more: Locum rate drop reflects latest in real-terms 15-year ‘pay cut’, says PDA

One blamed the low rates on pharmacists who “will work for peasant wages”, while another said the multiples “advertise terrible rates, at the hope that some muppet will pick up the shift”.

"Try calling a plumber at Christmas and see what he asks you for an hour," a commenter added.

 

Real-terms “pay cut”

 

Meanwhile in February, C+D revealed that locums across Great Britain were on average paid £31.67 per hour in 2023.

The rate, calculated from data gathered in C+D’s Salary Survey between October 27 last year and January 8, indicated that the average locum pharmacist rate had dropped for the first time since 2016.

But the Pharmacists’ Defence Association (PDA) told C+D that the rise and then fall in locum rates was not just a “pay bubble” growing and then finally bursting.

Read more: Revealed: The average locum pharmacist pay rate in 2023

“Rather than experiencing increased pay, in real terms actually the typical locum has been dealing with a pay cut since 2008 each and every hour they have worked,” PDA director Paul Day said.

“Although in recent years it looked like [pay] might finally get back up to the 2008 levels, it has in fact fallen away again significantly,” he added.

At the time, the PDA said that 2023’s rate drop reflected a £5.77 pay cut compared to 15 years ago.